Published: 7 November 2024
Last updated: 12 November 2024
For more recent information on the Jewish vote, read Dean Sherr on How much did Gaza affect the US election – and what does it mean for Australia?
Early exit polls show that 79% of Jews voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, bucking a trend which delivered a clear victory to Republican Donald Trump.
Tuesday’s election delivered the highest level of Jewish support for a Democrat seen since the 2000 election, votes cast despite the Gaza war and despite Trump’s bravado about “all I have done for Israel”.
Jewish voters clearly heard the words of Harris’s Jewish husband Doug Emhoff who told them at the close of the campaign, “Donald Trump is not your friend”.
Truly, there are only two ways to be Trump’s friend: shower him with the adoration his narcissism craves; or have something he needs. Trump, as has been often noted by those who have worked with him, is entirely transactional.
As The New York Times wrote in its post-election editorial, “Trump is transparently motivated only by the pursuit of power and the preservation of the cult of personality he has built around himself“.
So, what does Trump’s election mean for the Jews?
Accepting antisemites at the table
Comments5
Rachel Sussman8 November at 06:42 am
Such a disappointing analysis. It seems to lack ground apart from the usual ongoing rhetoric against Trump – one that is ‘out of touch’, is based on demonizing another and on building fear. As it is, it is exactly to this kind of rhetoric (among other things) that people in the US said they had enough, and that will lead to the demise of the Left everywhere else, unless it learns better….
I have too much to say about each of the ‘facts’ pointed to in this analysis, and it will take me forever to respond, I will not bother except of say the following: Surely the author is aware that American Jews (like many Jews including myself) are ‘naturally’ leaning towards the Left. Some of us, and this unfortunately applies to most American Jews, will not vote for a Republican even if Dracula was leading the Democrats due to blind (and baseless) loyalty. Please note that I say this metaphorically not as an offense to Ms Harris – she is certainly not Dracula even if she lacks the capacity, strength, and skills needed to serve as President of the Free World). We have a large family in the US and some friends, in the past 50 years they voted only Democrats no matter what, and I suspect they will continue to do so no matter what… So the fact that many Jews voted for the Democrats is hardly surprising, since most vote out of blind loyalty, or at best scenario they will refrain from voting altogether…. American Jews, like many Left supporters, live in the delusion of the past, when the Left was inclusive and compassionate and the Right could lead to extremism and Fascisms. As it is in our today’s world the tables are turning, while the Left is moving more and more towards extreme and fascisms, the Right is moving more towards the centre. We must learn that both sides have a contribution to make to society, each side carries part of human truth, and that both sides have the capacity to fall into the same pitfall – extreme, divisiveness, fascism… unless we learn this lesson we stay with the delusion of the ‘Good Left’ and the ‘Bad Right’ and with all the lies and misconceptions such delusion carries… I hope we will not have to witness the true force of the ugliness of the Left as it keeps sinking before we wake up from our delusion…